Tuesday, 23 October 2012

Lewis Baltz

Southwest Wall, Ware, Malcolm, and Garner, 16722 Hale, Irvine 
Lewis Baltz
1974
In an interview in which Lewis Baltz talks about his earlier work, he explains how he purposely intended to present the most typical and quotidian scenes in the most typical and quotidian way. His early work is very much a focus on conventional formalistic aesthetics and presented in an almost documentary way, however, a lack of colour (perpetuating this suggestion of mundanity) and visually pleasurable composition it allows these images of 'quotidian scenery' to be the focus of a certain unexpected beauty. I am very much inspired by the work of Lewis Baltz and intend to bring certain aspects of his modernist ideology and visuals into my own work.



Lewis Baltz is considered a pioneer and his work; key examples of the New Topographic movement. His work is very much a reaction towards the established popular landscape photography in America of that period and by presenting 'man-altered landscapes' in a particularly bold and stark manner, it greatly contrasts the typically romanticist style previously used. Romanticisation was a style in which the more conventional photographers used to depict the American landscapes, however, modernist photographers such as Baltz intended to subvert the stereotypical and instead, depicted brutal landscapes. An indefinite realism is prominent in such work; a style in which I aspire to follow and experiment with.

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